Coda
by leiah1984
Summary: one shot. Eames has to enter witness protection and thus the fall out. Happy ending though.


_Disclaimer: I own nothing even remotely related to Law and Order: Criminal Intent, please don't sue, I have no money promise! _

_Note: The timeline jumps around a tad, hope it's not confusing. :o)_

_Changes_

Just a mere five months ago her name was Alexandra. Sometimes late at night when she can't sleep, which is most nights, she says it over and over, until it almost begins to lose all meaning. She remembers how she had never liked it, how it never seemed to fit her. It brought to her mind a prissy stuck-up girl, one who would wear pearls and take horseback riding lessons or something. Her one option was to shorten it to Alex and threaten any one with nothing short of death if they dared call her _Alexandra_. However, now with a different name, thousands of miles from home, and in a new life forced upon her, her old name was the one thing she clung to with a tenacity that would no doubt have surprised her younger self. It was her only proof though see, her way of holding onto that girl who was in no way prissy or wore pearls but who's name was in fact Alexandra, she existed, and Alex really hadn't dreamed her up one night. So she says it every night, over and over. It's her lullaby. Her prayer.

_Snow_

_Now this is a down right shame._

Alex sighs and shakes her head. She pushes the curtain back in place and plops down on her sofa. Sometimes she really hated Arizona. It was the middle of January and it had to be at least seventy degrees out. Christmas really hadn't been the same without any snow, or at least bone chilling weather. Somehow it had made her feel all the more alone, even more a stranger to herself than usual. She had to physically sit on her hands for a good hour to keep from calling her parent's house Christmas morning and it had never hurt her more knowing that her mom and dad thought she had disappeared without even a goodbye. So Alex spent the day as far away as possible from any phones, e-mail, or carrier pigeons, any form of communication that would tempt her to make contact with all the people she missed. She instead wrapped herself up in a giant blanket and listened to Christmas songs all day long, a bottle of really good bourbon within arms reach, which ended up not mattering in the least, she poured the whole thing down the sink just as the stars were coming out and went to bed.

That night she dreamed of lovely wool coats, leather gloves, her breath coming out it in puffs of condensation, lava hot coffee, and the ridiculous idea of making a snow man with her tall some what scruffy former partner in the middle of Central Park.

When she awoke the next morning, the muscles in her face ached and she realized that she had been smiling in her sleep all night long.

_Perfume_

As it is well known within the Major Case squad of the NYPD, Detective Robert Goren has a very good sense of smell. _Nose like a goddamn bloodhound_, Logan was keen to exclaim. There weren't many scents that Bobby couldn't distinguish and was quite prideful of the fact, however there was one that eluded him, and now, after five months of not smelling it, it was beginning to haunt him. Eames's perfume. She had received it as birthday gift a few years back and obviously had liked it, because she kept buying it. It was citrus-y, clean smelling, but also had a very warm undertone, vanilla perhaps. Perhaps? He was losing it, that was for sure, but really what were his odd abilities without Eames to make some sarcastic yet good natured comment about?

Hell bent and determined to find out what it was, for no reason he could actually process, he ventured into Bloomingdale's one day and made his way to the perfume section. Ignoring the very enthusiastic salesperson, he began spraying all the ones that seemed promising, skipping the ones he was familiar with and knew Eames wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole. None of them were right though and he was beginning to feel a headache coming on. As he became more and more frustrated and was about to give up, the young salesperson ventured over amidst a sneezing fit yet still managing to look a bit cross.

"Sir, please, is there something I can help you find?"

Bobby sighed, but relented and tried describing the scent to the best of his fading memory. An instant look of recognition flashed across the woman's face though and she made her way to another counter, retrieving a small elegant looking bottle. Bobby eagerly followed her and nearly grabbed it from her hands. As soon as he sprayed it and the scent reached the memory receptors in his brain, the store along with the saleswoman's voice simply melted away. He was five months in the past, outside an empty warehouse in Jersey City, and he was saying goodbye to Eames. It was raining, causing the scent of her perfume to become quite strong and permeate off her clothes. He remembered how she was having a hard time looking him in the eyes, how they stood there for quite a while, both their minds blank of anything remotely appropriate to say. The federal marshal waiting quite impatiently by the car began clearing his throat obnoxiously until Bobby gave him a death glare. Finally, Eames looked up, held his gaze.

"Will you look after my parents please?" her voice was strong, trying oh so desperately to be brave, but her eyes were soft, almost pleading.

Really Bobby knew she meant, _please let my parents look after you._ He nodded though, agreeing to both sentiments. And since neither were for awkward silences, or sappy goodbyes, or hugs, or a lot of things, Bobby simply walked her to the car. He opened the door, and tried to ignore how she was trembling slightly as he grasped her upper arm to help her in, because if Alex Eames was afraid, he knew he should be downright terrified.

He got really _really _drunk that night and didn't remember how exactly he got home. Guess he was lucky to be alive, or something like that.

_A New Year_

Somehow Alex gets dragged out on New Year's Eve. Her co-workers mean well, they all seem like nice people, Alex is just having a hard time creating any sort of relationships with the people she meets. Her whole life has been fabricated by the Federal government and since Alex feels guilty lying to people, she has tried to keep her distance. However tonight Leila and Ronnie won't accept no for an answer and so she has found herself in the middle of a very crowded bar drinking a pretty good margarita and kind of almost enjoying herself. Very close to midnight she manages to find a seat at the bar, and squeezed between Leila and Ronnie, she watches the ball at Times Square begin it's descent. Alex's thoughts turn to Bobby, he has truthfully been in the back of her mind all night, she remembers how he had always been unimpressed at the whole idea of New Year's Eve. She knows it's because he never believed that just because the year was starting over, it didn't necessarily mean anything, everything always managed to stay the same. But maybe, she thinks, maybe this year with all that happened, his attitude would have been different, maybe this year he might even have been _hopeful_. Alex is suddenly awakened from her reverie as the ball hits it mark and the strangers around her go nuts.

"Isn't it great? I love New Year's, you get a chance for a fresh start!" Leila, Alex's youngest and most sincere co-worker, exclaims excitedly in her ear.

Yeah, Alex muses to herself, I already did that, and it really wasn't any fun at all. She doesn't say that to Leila though, instead she smiles and nods her head. Downing her watery drink, she hops off the bar stool and begins pushing her way through the mob in search of the bathroom. Halfway there she is grabbed by an only slightly drunk mildly good-looking guy. She has to restrain herself from switching into cop mode and punching him in the nose, he turns out to be relatively harmless anyway.

"Happy New Year's Beautiful!" he shouts before pulling her in for a very wet kiss, right on the mouth.

Alex stands, a bit dazed, he smiles goofily at her and then turns to disappear back into the crowd. She waits till he is out of sight, still in somewhat of a shock yet becoming more amused by each passing second, before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and continues her search for the restroom.

Thus is how the former Alex Eames rings in the New Year of 2009.

_Faking It_

It has been a month since Eames had to leave and Bobby is doing okay. Really, he is, he promises to anyone who asks. He is focusing on the more positive aspects of this whole situation, something he was never very good at, but they are his only lifeline now, something to hold onto when he looks across his desk only to face the gaping absence of Eames, shocking in different ways every time. So, he thinks about how she is safe where she is now, that she is being watched over, that if she had stayed she would surely be dead by now. What he doesn't think about is the look on her face when the captain told she would have to join the program, or the other look in her parent's eyes when they realized she really and truly was not coming back any time soon, or possibly ever. And he especially doesn't think how Eames had to give up everything she had worked for her whole goddamn life and was probably now an office manager in Kansas City, for that was the one thing that always threatened to send him over the edge.

So Bobby lies, to the captain, to Logan and Wheeler, and even to her parents although they know better. He says he's okay, tries to ignore her empty desk along with the deep ache that has settled in the back of his throat, and convinces himself somehow that Kansas City really couldn't be all that bad.

_Moving On_

Sometimes Alex thinks it might be possible. She watches couples, moms and their kids, brand new families, and thinks, I could do that. I could meet someone, get married again, maybe have children of my own. Her position at the school entails reasonable hours, ones that would allow her to have a life outside of her job, something she could never ever have imagined before. Leila always was threatening to set her up with her older brother, the doctor, with his own house and BMW, so maybe…But actually no thanks, he didn't really sound her type, Alex always had preferred cops quite honestly. But if not him, she was looking at others, actually accepting phone numbers from guys at bars, even calling a few of them. But nothing ever came of the dates, although to be honest it was mainly because she never _let _anything come from them.

A year has passed since she left her other life, and every day it gets easier to lie to the people around, even to herself sometimes. Which is where this idea of actually being with someone comes in, because deep down she knows it could and would never happen. Marriage has enough problems without basing it on dishonesty from the very beginning. She remembers the conversation she had with Leila not all that long ago and how her brother came up again which lead somehow to the subject of marriage.

"Really? You were married before?" Leila exclaimed, her eyes wide with unsuppressed surprise.

Alex ignored her some what insulting disbelief and instead replied, "Yeah, feels like a lifetime ago," but then she winced slightly, because really it _was _a lifetime ago. And suddenly she never felt more like crying, in the whole twelve months, then right there in front of Leila in the break room of Sierra Vista High School. Alex contained herself though, along with lying she'd gotten good at restraining any real emotions.

Bobby would be so proud, or incredibly disappointed, she hadn't really decided yet.

_The Prologue_

Two weeks after Bobby returns from suspension, his brother is found dead, having overdosed on heroin in a seedy Brooklyn motel room, the ultimate cliché even until the very end. Eames still isn't really speaking to Bobby at this point but she goes to the morgue with him, and afterwards, when he has made the i.d., she tells him that if there is anything he needs to only ask. From anyone else the sentiment would have sounded hollow and meaningless, but Bobby knows she really means it, despite everything.

Eames drives him home, quiet the whole time, but it's a different silence than before, when she was madder than hell at him. This is a much more comforting silence, one that means that there might be hope for them to be ok after all. So when she drops him off he wants to tell her that he is sorry, really sorry this time, not like before when he apologized but didn't _really _it mean because he was just too damn happy to have his job back, this time he will mean it completely. When she turns to him to say goodnight though she looks so very tired and probably not in the mood for his contriteness, no matter how sincere it is, so instead he returns her goodbye, and figures there will be time in the morning to ask for her forgiveness.

However another week passes before Bobby thinks to say something again and by then they had caught _that case_, the one that Eames got too close to, the one that changed everything, the one that made Bobby realize that sometimes there isn't always time and that if you want to say something, just seize the moment and _say it._

_Fifteen Months Later_

Bobby stared at the file until he felt sure he had gone crossed eyed. It had been a long time since he had seen that name, let alone heard it said aloud. The captain had asked to meet Bobby in his office "bright and early" this morning. However the captain was no where to be found and Bobby had begun to get antsy. He sits with his legs crossed, his foot shaking impatiently, but as his eyes begin roaming throughout the room and fall upon the file on Captain Ross's desk, his foot stops, as if an off button was suddenly switched.

No one talked about her, and Bobby supposed it was safer that way, but it had begun to make him believe that he had made her up, and God knows he didn't need anything else making him feel crazier. _Alexandra Eames._ He almost thought he was hallucinating, why would the captain have her file out on his desk, for anyone who pleased to come in and read it? Unless, there was no reason to cover it up anymore because…No, that never happened, the feds knew what they were doing, right? Bobby began shaking his head to himself, almost to shake the very idea right out of it. He glanced out into the bullpen and when he saw no sign of the captain he grabbed the file from his desk. Just as Bobby was about to begin looking through it though, the captain walked through the door. Bobby jumped up from his seat, not really very concerned with trying to pretend he hadn't been about to read a fellow officer's classified file. Captain Ross noticed what Bobby was holding but decided to say nothing, he simply stared at Bobby, meeting him look for look. And Bobby wanted to exclaim angrily, _go ahead just say it! _He wanted an answer to this question he was sure he already had the answer to. He thought then maybe this horrible weakness that had overtaken him might lessen and become bearable, or it might just kill him. _God, just tell me, she's dead isn't she? They found her?_

Instead, a miracle.

"Detective Eames is coming home."

_A Late Night Phone Call_

Alex Eames had been staring at the ceiling for a good two hours, every now and then glancing at the clock on her nightstand, and then sighing, completely frustrated. She couldn't sleep. Tomorrow she was starting back to work and like a child the night before the first day of school, she was just too excited. Turning to the look at the time again, she groaned: 2 am. Just as she was about to actually start counting sheep her cell phone began ringing.

Without even looking she already knew who it was and answered, "Hello Bobby."

"Eames, I didn't wake you, did I?" he asked, even after a week of her being back, it was still a little awkward talking to her again.

"Nope, I can't sleep," she replies.

"Me neither…I think I'm too…excited," he admits, and Alex can just picture him turning slightly red at the admission.

"Bobby, you did miss me!" she exclaims jokingly.

"Of course I did, Eames, God…" he retorts softly yet almost angrily.

"Well I'm excited also," she says, leaning back against the pillows and trying to get comfortable with the phone pressed to her ear.

"So I was wondering, I never asked, what was your name?"

And Alex smiles to herself, because God, how she had missed these sort of questions from Bobby, questions about things that weren't really that important to anyone but Bobby and which always compelled him to call her no matter the time.

"It was Rose," she answers, and she can't help crinkling her nose disagreeably. It had always felt weird introducing herself with that name, like an itch she couldn't scratch.

"Hmm, Rose…" he mumbles to himself and Alex can actually feel him mentally check out for a second as he weighs the pros and cons of both names. "Alexandra is much better," Bobby finally declares.

Alex thinks of pearls and horseback riding lessons but decides those things really aren't that bad and replies softly, "Yeah, I think so too."

She happens to look out the window then and can't help but almost yelp with glee. She jumps from her bed and runs to the living room for a better view.

"Eames? Eames, what is it?"

"Bobby, it's snowing,"

Alex presses her forehead to the glass of the window and smiling, watches the delicate flakes float down upon New York City.


End file.
